Photos: Snoop Lion aka Snoop Dogg, Pune

Snoop Dogg at Amanora Park, Pune. Photo: Veeraj Nair

We were rather stumped when we reached Amanora Park in Pune to catch Snoop Dogg’s debut concert in India to find not more than 300 hip hop fans at the venue. The emcee for the night with a wacko accent and high-pitched woo-hoos that punctuated every sentence was the only source of entertainment for fans who had been waiting for the top Dogg for over two hours.

However, at 8.30 pm, when Snoop finally arrived on stage in his Santa-red fur coat, the crowd had swelled to about 1,000 people. Snoop didn’t lose a minute to give his audience what they had been waiting for. Hits like “Gin and Juice,” “Wet,” “Ain’t No Fun,” “Beautiful,” “Snoop’s Upside Ya Head” and “Sexual Seduction” were accompanied with the rapper’s entourage of skimpily clad dancers. The fact that Tha Dogg Pound family comprising Daz Dillinger and Kurupt also joined him on stage was every rap fans dream come true.

When Snoop played the title track from Singh Is Kinng, his fans also took the cue, almost instantly changing their fist raising moves to a chest thumping movement as popularized by the Akshay Kumar-starrer. The American rapper did not end his Bollywood fixation there, playing the stoner favorite “Dum Maro Dum” and then baffling even his truest fans by taking a vocal break and playing “Subha Hone Na De (Tu Mera Hero)” from Desi Boyz. His collaborative numbers such as Akon’s “I Want To Fuck You,” Katy Perry’s “California Girls,” 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.”  and Wiz Khalifa’s “Young Wild and Free” had the audience singing along. And though the concert left us high, Snoop’s unceremonious entry and exit was not something we had predicted fo shizzles.  

Photos: Veeraj Nair